The Fethiye Film Festival Team

Aslı Akdağ (1981, Ankara) earned a master’s degree in film production from the Film and Drama Program at Kadir Has University following her law degree. Her multifaceted perspective, informed by the disciplines of law and cinema, has evolved into a narrative language that explores the relationship between the individual’s inner world and social structures in her work.
In 2011, she was accepted into the Sarajevo Talent Campus—a selective international platform—in the field of film production; that same year, she co-founded the Turkish branch of Kaliber Film Netherlands with Mete Gümürhan. The first feature-length film she produced, *Genç Pehlivanlar* (2016), had its world premiere at the Berlinale and was awarded the Special Jury Prize. The film has been screened at numerous major festivals, including the Istanbul Film Festival, the Sarajevo Film Festival, DOK.fest München, Cinekid, and the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival.
Her first feature-length documentary as a director, *Bekleyiş* (2021), won the Special Jury Prize at the Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival; it subsequently received Best Documentary awards at the Ankara Film Festival and the Golden Saffron Documentary Film Festival. The film also won the Special Jury Prize at the Boston Turkish Film Festival and was licensed by MUBI.
The world premiere of her medium-length documentary *My Mother’s Miracle*, completed in 2024, took place at the DocuBaku International Documentary Film Festival. Her latest documentary, *Arayış* (*Human in Quest*), constructs a narrative that explores the processes of human transformation through three distinct characters and is currently preparing for its international festival tour.
Her first feature-length fiction project, *Guve*, which she developed as both director and screenwriter, is a psychological thriller that examines the relationship between women, memory, the body, and trauma from a psychoanalytic perspective. *Guve* won the Best Project Award at the Antalya Film Forum; was a finalist at the Köprüde Buluşmalar and the Ankara Film Festival Project Development Platform; was developed as part of the M2 Film Lab; and was shortlisted for Sundance and Cinemart.
Akdağ’s work revolves around the concepts of belonging, memory, transformation, and fragility. In her narratives, which focus particularly on the worlds of children and young people, she seeks to interpret the construction of individual identity through the lens of social structures and power dynamics.
*The Kingdom of Mists* is a natural continuation of Aslı Akdağ’s long-standing research on childhood, belonging, and the ways in which violence is learned. Intended to be the director’s first feature-length fiction film and produced as a co-production, this work addresses a universal issue. Set in the highlands of Muğla, the story examines contemporary issues—such as peer bullying, which is becoming increasingly visible among today’s children; the effects of digital culture; and the intergenerational transmission of codes of masculinity—through the lens of a local geography. Through this film, the director aims to look at the world of children from the inside, exploring not the moment when violence emerges, but how it is learned and reproduced.

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